What Is An Emergency Kit?

On paper, an emergency kit is a self-contained bag that has all the necessary supplies you need to survive. In reality, it’s one of your last line of defenses against the spread of disease, hunger, cold, thirst & fear. The basic explanation of an emergency kit may be good enough for people to start preparing. However, in our experience, people genuinely embrace preparing when an emergency hits close to home. It could be as simple as a power outage or as extreme as a tornado. The fact is, you realize that you’re not prepared, and it scares you.

To help you answer the question “what is an emergency kit?” we’ve set up two scenarios using a similar impact event. Scenario one depicts a typical family’s response to an emergency. Scenario two shows us what a family can do if they start preparing for disasters.

Scenario One – Unprepared Family

You hear a loud noise, then all power goes out. It’s dark. You can’t find the flashlight, when you do, you realize it needs batteries. Now you can’t find the extra batteries. You open the fridge door to get food, only to realize the food is spoiled. The tap water stopped working, and your kids are crying because they’re hungry. You need to know what’s going on, so you turn on your phone, only to realize it’s not working. All the networks are down. You don’t have a radio, because who has a radio these days. It’s getting dark, and the heat stopped working. It’s cold, so you wrap your family in whatever blankets you can find. You start to smell something weird in the air.

Scenario Two – Prepared Family

You hear a loud noise, then all power goes out. It’s dark, so you get your emergency kit from the closet. You take out the emergency candle and light it using matches found inside. It brightens up the whole room. You take out your emergency flashlight and hand it off to your kid. You ask him to look for the deck of cards inside the emergency kit so you can set up a game of “go fish.” In the meantime, you take out the emergency radio and listen for any updates. You’ve learned that a terrorist bombing took place and poisonous gas is spreading quickly throughout the city. The police have ordered everyone to shelter-in-place.

You take your family to a room with no windows, and use duct tape to seal off all the cracks in the doors all without scaring your kids or losing your turn at “go-fish.” Your kids start complaining about being hungry. So you take out emergency freeze-dried food from your emergency kit and provide a delicious gourmet meal for your family. All it took was water from your emergency water pouches. You do a quick inventory of your supplies and realize you have enough food and water to sustain yourself for three days.

An emergency kit allows your family to better cope with many types of emergency scenarios, from power outages to spoiled food and generating heat. An emergency kit is there to help when you need it most.

At Practical Emergency Kits, we are neither survivalists nor mindless followers of government. We believe in family, country and human life. A substantial component of that belief is preparation. Practical Emergency Kits was founded on the principal of providing families with emergency kits and practical knowledge that’s grounded in scientific research. We believe knowledge is the best way of conquering fear.